Thepublication of the book Moscow in December 1905 (Moscow, 1906)
could not have been more timely. It is an urgent task of the workers’ party to
assimilate the lessons of the December uprising. Unfortunately, this book is
like a barrel of honey spoilt by a spoonful of tar: most interesting
material—despite its incompleteness—and incredibly slovenly,
incredibly trite conclusions. We shall deal with these conclusions on another
occasion[1]
;
at present we shall turn our attention to the burning political
question of the day, to the lessons of the Moscow uprising.

Theprincipal forms of the December movement in Moscow were the peaceful strike
and demonstrations, and these were the only forms of struggle in which the vast
majority of the workers took an active part. Yet, the December action in Moscow
vividly demonstrated that the general strike, as an independent and predominant
form of struggle, is out of date, that the movement is breaking out of these
narrow bounds with elemental and irresistible force and giving rise to the
highest form of struggle—an uprising.

Incalling the strike, all the revolutionary parties, all the Moscow unions
recognised and even intuitively felt that it must inevitably grow into an
uprising. On December 6 the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies resolved to
“strive to transform the strike into an armed uprising”. As a matter
of fact, however, none of the organisations were prepared for this. Even the
Joint Council of Volunteer Fighting Squads[2]
spoke (on December 9!)
of an uprising as of something remote, and it is quite evident that it
had no hand in or control of
the street fighting that took place. The organisations failed to keep
pace with the growth and range of the movement.

Thestrike was growing into an uprising, primarily as a result of the pressure
of the objective conditions created after October. A general strike could no
longer take the government unawares: it had already organised the forces of
counter-revolution, and they were ready for military action. The whole course of
the Russian revolution after October, and the sequence of events in Moscow in
the December days, strikingly confirmed one of Marx’s profound propositions:
revolution progresses by giving rise to a strong and united counter-revolution,
i.e., it compels the enemy to resort to more and more extreme measures of
defence and in this way devises ever more powerful means of
attack.[3]

December7 and 8: a peaceful strike, peaceful mass demonstrations. Evening of
the 8th: the siege of the Aquarium.[4]
The morning of the 9th: the crowd in
Strastnaya Square is attacked by the dragoons. Evening: the Fiedler
building[5]
is raided. Temper rises. The unorganised street crowds,
quite spontaneously and hesitatingly, set up the first barricades.

The10th: artillery fire is opened on the barricades and the crowds in the
streets. Barricades are set up more deliberately, and no longer in isolated
cases, but on a really mass scale. The whole population is in the streets; all
the main centres of the city are covered by a network of barricades. For several
days the volunteer fighting units wage a stubborn guerrilla battle against the
troops, which exhausts the troops and compels Dubasov[6]
to beg for
reinforcements. Only on December 15 did the superiority of the government forces
become complete, and on December 17 the Semyonovsky Regiment[7]
crushed Presnya District, the last stronghold of the
uprising.

Froma strike and demonstrations to isolated barricades. From isolated
barricades to the mass erection of barricades and street fighting against the
troops. Over the heads of the organisations, the mass proletarian struggle
developed from a strike to an uprising. This is the greatest historic gain the
Russian revolution achieved in December 1905; and like all preceding gains it
was purchased at the price of enormous sacrifices. The movement was raised from
a
general political strike to a higher stage. It compelled the reaction to go
to the limit in its resistance, and so brought vastly nearer the moment
when the revolution will also go to the limit in applying the means of
attack. The reaction cannot go further than the shelling of barricades,
buildings and crowds. But the revolution can go very much further than the
Moscow volunteer fighting units, it can go very, very much further in breadth
and depth. And the revolution has advanced far since December. The base of the
revolutionary crisis has become immeasurably broader—the blade must now be
sharpened to a keener edge.

Theproletariat sensed sooner than its leaders the change in the objective
conditions of the struggle and the need for a transition from the strike to an
uprising. As is always the case, practice marched ahead of theory. A peaceful
strike and demonstrations immediately ceased to satisfy the workers; they
asked: What is to be done next? And they demanded more resolute action. The
instructions to set up barricades reached the districts exceedingly late, when
barricades were already being erected in the centre of the city. The workers set
to work in large numbers, but even this did not satisfy them; they
wanted to know: what is to be done
next?— they
demanded active
measures. In December, we, the leaders of the Social-Democratic proletariat,
were like a commander-in-chief who has deployed his troops in such an absurd
way that most of them took no active part in the battle. The masses of the
workers demanded, but failed to receive, instructions for resolute mass action.

Thus,nothing could be more short-sighted than Plekhanov’s view, seized upon by
all the opportunists, that the strike was untimely and should not have been
started, and that “they should not have taken to arms”. On the
contrary, we should have taken to arms more resolutely, energetically and
aggressively; we should have explained to the masses that it was impossible to
confine things to a peaceful strike and that a fearless and relentless armed
fight was necessary. And now we must at last openly and publicly admit that
political strikes are inadequate; we must carry on the widest agitation among
the masses in favour of an armed uprising and make no attempt to obscure this
question by talk about
“preliminary stages”, or to befog it in any way. We would be
deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses
the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the
immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.

Suchis the first lesson of the December events. Another lesson concerns the
character of the uprising, the methods by which it is conducted, and the
conditions which lead to the troops coming over to the side of the people. An
extremely biased view on this latter point prevails in the Right wing of our
Party. It is alleged that there is no possibility of fighting modern troops; the
troops must become revolutionary. Of course, unless the revolution assumes a
mass character and affects the troops, there can be no question of serious
struggle. That we must work among the troops goes without saying. But we must
not imagine that they will come over to our side at one stroke, as a result of
persuasion or their own convictions. The Moscow uprising clearly demonstrated
how stereotyped and lifeless this view is. As a matter of fact, the wavering of
the troops, which is inevitable in every truly popular movement, leads to a
real fight for the troops whenever the revolutionary struggle
be comes
acute. The Moscow uprising was precisely an example of the desperate, frantic
struggle for the troops that takes place between the reaction and the
revolution. Dubasov himself declared that of the fifteen thousand men of the
Moscow garrison, only five thousand were reliable. The government restrained the
waverers by the most diverse and desperate measures: they appealed to them,
flattered them, bribed them, presented them with watches, money, etc.; they
doped them with vodka, they lied to them, threatened them, confined them to
barracks and disarmed them, and those who were suspected of being least reliable
were removed by treachery and violence. And we must have the courage to
confess, openly and unreservedly, that in this respect we lagged
be hind
the
government. We failed to utilise the forces at our disposal for such an active,
bold, resourceful and aggressive fight for the wavering troops as that which the
government waged and won. We have carried on work in the army and we will
redouble our efforts in the future ideologically to “win over” the
troops. But we shall prove to be miserable
pedants if we forget that at a time of uprising there must also be a physical
struggle for the troops.

Inthe December days, the Moscow proletariat taught us magnificent lessons in
ideologically “winning over” the troops, as, for example, on
December 8 in Strastnaya Square, when the crowd surrounded the Cossacks, mingled
and fraternised with them, and persuaded them to turn back. Or on December 10,
in Presnya District, when two working girls, carrying a red flag in a crowd of
10,000 people, rushed out to meet the Cossacks crying: “Kill us! We will
not surrender the flag alive!” And the Cossacks were disconcerted and galloped
away, amidst the shouts from the crowd: “Hurrah for the Cossacks!” These
examples of courage and heroism should be impressed forever on the mind of the
proletariat.

Buthere are examples of how we lagged behind Dubasov. On December 9, soldiers
were marching down Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street singing the
Marseillaise, on their way to join the insurgents. The workers sent
delegates to meet them. Malakhov himself galloped at breakneck speed towards
them. The workers were too late, Malakhov reached them first. He delivered a
passionate speech, caused the soldiers to waver, surrounded them with dragoons,
marched them off to barracks and locked them in. Malakhov reached the soldiers
in time and we did not, although within two days 150,000 people had risen at our
call, and these could and should have organised the patrolling of the
streets. Malakhov surrounded the soldiers with dragoons, whereas we failed to
surround the Malakhovs with bomb-throwers. We could and should have done this;
and long ago the Social-Democratic press (the old
Iskra[8])
pointed out that ruthless extermination of civil and military chiefs was our
duty during an uprising. What took place in Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street was
apparently repeated in its main features in front of the Nesvizhskiye Barracks
and the Krutitskiye Barracks, and also when the workers attempted to
“withdraw” the Ekaterinoslav Regiment, and when delegates were sent
to the sappers in Alexandrov, and when the Rostov artillery on its way to Moscow
was turned back, and when the sappers were disarmed in Kolomna, and so
on. During the uprising we proved unequal to our task in the fight for the
wavering troops.

TheDecember events confirmed another of Marx’s profound propositions, which
the opportunists have forgotten, namely, that insurrection is an art and
that the principal rule of this art is the waging of a desperately bold
and irrevocably determined offensive.[9]
We have
not sufficiently assimilated this truth. We ourselves have not sufficiently
learned, nor have we taught the masses, this art, this rule to attack at all
costs. We must make up for this omission with all our energy. It is not
enough to take sides on the question of political slogans; it is also
necessary to take sides on the question of an armed uprising. Those who are
opposed to it, those who do not prepare for it, must be ruthlessly dismissed
from the ranks of the supporters of the revolution, sent packing to its
enemies, to the traitors or cowards; for the day is approaching when the
force of events and the conditions of the struggle will compel us to
distinguish between enemies and friends according to this principle. It is
not passivity that we should preach, not mere “waiting” until
the troops “come over”. No! We must proclaim from the house tops
the need for a bold offensive and armed attack, the necessity at such times
of exterminating the persons in command of the enemy, and of a most
energetic fight for the wavering troops.

Thethird great lesson taught by Moscow concerns the tactics and organisation
of the forces for an uprising. Military tactics depend on the level of military
technique. This plain truth Engels demonstrated and brought home to
all Marxists.[10]
Military technique today is not what it was in the
middle of the nineteenth century. It would be folly to contend against
artillery in crowds and defend barricades with revolvers. Kautsky was right when
he wrote that it is high time now, after Moscow, to review Engels’s conclusions,
and that Moscow had inaugurated “new barricade
tactics”.[11]
These tactics are the
tactics of guerrilla warfare. The organisation required for such tactics is
that of mobile and exceedingly small units, units of ten, three or even two
persons. We often meet Social-Democrats now who scoff whenever units of five or
three are mentioned. But scoffing is only a cheap way of ignoring the
new question of tactics and organisation raised by street fighting
under the conditions imposed by modern military technique. Study carefully the
story
of the Moscow uprising, gentlemen, and you will understand what connection
exists between “units of five” and the question of “new
barricade tactics”.

Moscowadvanced these tactics, but failed to develop them far enough, to apply
them to any considerable extent, to a really mass extent. There were too few
volunteer fighting squads, the slogan of bold attack was not issued to the
masses of the workers and they did not apply it; the guerrilla detachments were
too uniform in character, their arms and methods were inadequate, their ability
to lead the crowd was almost undeveloped. We must make up for all this and we
shall do so by learning from the experience of Moscow, by spreading this
experience among the masses and by stimulating their creative efforts to develop
it still further. And the guerrilla warfare and mass terror that have been
taking place throughout Russia practically without a break since December, will
undoubtedly help the masses to learn the correct tactics of an
uprising. Social-Democracy must recognise this mass terror and incorporate it
into its tactics, organising and controlling it of course, subordinating it to
the interests and conditions of the working-class movement and the general
revolutionary struggle, while eliminating and ruthlessly lopping off the
“hooligan” perversion of this guerrilla warfare which was so
splendidly and ruthlessly dealt with by our Moscow comrades during the uprising
and by the Letts during the days of the famous Lettish
republics.[12]

Therehave been new advances in military technique in the very recent
period. The Japanese War produced the hand grenade. The small-arms factories
have placed automatic rifles on the market. Both these weapons are already being
successfully used in the Russian revolution, but to a degree that is far from
adequate. We can and must take advantage of improvements in technique, teach the
workers’ detachments to make bombs in large quantities, help them and our
fighting squads to obtain supplies of explosives, fuses and automatic rifles. If
the mass of the workers takes part in uprisings in the towns, if mass attacks
are launched on the enemy, if a determined and skilful fight is waged for the
troops, who after the Duma, after Sveaborg and Kronstadt are wavering more than
ever—and if we ensure participation
of the rural areas in the general struggle—victory will be
ours in the next all-Russian armed uprising.

Letus, then, develop our work more extensively and set our
tasks more boldly, while mastering the lessons of the great days of the Russian
revolution. The basis of our work is a correct estimate of class interests and
of the requirements of the nation’s development at the present juncture. We are
rallying, and shall continue to rally, an increasing section of the proletariat,
the peasantry and the army under the slogan of overthrowing the tsarist regime
and convening a constituent assembly by a revolutionary government. As hitherto,
the basis and chief content of our work is to develop the political
understanding of the masses. But let us not forget that, in addition to this
general, constant and fundamental task, times like the present in Russia impose
other, particular and special tasks. Let us not become pedants and philistines,
let us not evade these special tasks of the moment, these special tasks of the
given forms of struggle, by meaningless references to our permanent duties,
which remain unchanged at all times and in all circumstances.

Letus remember that a great mass struggle is approaching. It will be an armed
uprising. It must, as far as possible, be simultaneous. The masses must know that
they are entering upon an armed, bloody and desperate struggle. Contempt for
death must become widespread among them and will ensure victory. The onslaught
on the enemy must be pressed with the greatest vigour; attack, not defence, must
be the slogan of the masses; the ruthless extermination of the enemy will be
their task; the organisation of the struggle will become mobile and flexible;
the wavering elements among the troops will be drawn into active
participation. And in this momentous struggle, the party of the class-conscious
proletariat must discharge its duty to the full.

Notes

[2]The Joint Council of Volunteer Fighting Squads was
formed in Moscow at the end of October 1905. It was created at the outset for
the practical struggle against the Black Hundreds but it was kept in existence
during the December uprising. It included representatives of the volunteer
squads of the Moscow Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., the Moscow group of
Social-Democrats, the Moscow committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and
also of the volunteer squads bearing the names “Free District”,
“University”, “Typographical” and
“Caucasian”. The S.-R.-Menshevik majority
of the Joint Council was responsible for disorganising its activity; during the
days of the December armed uprising it lagged behind the revolutionary events
and was incapable of acting as the operational general staff of the
uprising.

[4]
During the evening of December 8 (21), 1905, soldiers and police cordoned off
the “Aquarium” garden (at the Sadovo-Triumfalnaya Square) where a
crowded meeting was being held in the theatre. Thanks to the selfless efforts of
the workers’ volunteer squads guarding the meeting, bloodshed was avoided; those
who possessed arms were enabled to escape through a broken fence, but the other
participants in the meeting who went out through the gate were searched, beaten
up and in many cases arrested.

[5]
The Fiedler school building (at Chistiye Prudy) was
regularly used for party meetings. During the evening of December 9 (22), 1905,
when a meeting was being held there, it was surrounded by troops. The
participants in the meeting, mostly members of volunteer squads, refused to
surrender and barricaded themselves in the building. The troops opened fire
using artillery and machine-guns. During the destruction of the building more
than 30 persons were killed or wounded; 120 were arrested.

[6]Dubasov, F. V. (1845-1912)—Governor-General
of Moscow in 1905-06, who directed the suppression of the armed
uprising of the Moscow workers in December 1905.

[7]Semenovtsy—soldiers of the Semenovsky Guards
Regiment who were sent from St. Petersburg to Moscow in December 1905 to
suppress the uprising of the Moscow workers.

[8]Iskra (The Spark)—the first all-Russian
illegal Marxist revolutionary newspaper. It was founded by Lenin in 1900, and
it played a decisive part in building the Marxist revolutionary party of the
Russian working class. After the Party, at the Second Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P. in 1903, had split into a revolutionary (Bolshevik) wing and an
opportunist (Menshevik) wing, Iskra passed into the hands of the
Mensheviks and became known as the “new”
Iskra in contrast to Lenin’s old Iskra.

[9]
This refers to Engels’s Revolution and
Counter-Revolution in Germany, 1848 (New York Daily Tribune, 18.IX. 1852)
which was published in 1851-52 as a series of articles in the newspaper New
York Daily Tribune over the signature of Marx, who originally intended to
write them but, being preoccupied with his economic researches,
handed over the task to Engels. In writing the articles Engels
constantly consulted Marx, who also read them through, before they
were sent to the press. Not until 1913, as a result of the publication of
the correspondence between Marx and Engels, did it become known that the
work had been
written by Engels.

[10]
Engels expounded this proposition on a number of occasions in
his works, notably in Anti-Dühring.

[11]
Lenin deals with this in more detail in his work “The
Russian Revolution and the Tasks of the Proletariat” (see present
edition, Vol. 10, pp. 141-42).

[12]
In December 1905 various Lettish towns were seized by armed
detachments of insurgent workers, agricultural labourers and
peasants. Guerrilla war against the tsarist troops began. In January 1906 the
uprising in Latvia was suppressed by punitive expeditions
under tsarist generals.